DataTech Concepts: database marketing firm for general advertising, media buying, creative, direct marketing and online.

Source: Erik Sherman, Ad Age, “Help Wanted: Analytic Marketers” 9/4/06

According to the book "What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds", most companies have no idea how effective their marketing campaigns are. Co-author and Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Greg Stuart says that when most businesses try to evaluate media mixes, they walk into a "wasteland," focusing on cost of each impression. "There can be zero relationship between how often a consumer is exposed [according to] a media-measurement company ... [and] the actual effectiveness of the campaign," he says. "You must figure out how to get beyond the silly media measures that you're using and get to what is effectiveness."

Source: Marsha Lindsay, Ad Age, "Today's Niche Marketing Is All About Narrow, Not Small" 6/04/07

Booz Allen Hamilton explains why: As every market matures, choice increases. Then competition drives up quality and convenience to the point at which offerings become commoditized. The only businesses that then thrive are those that move beyond "me-too" or incremental offerings to marketing more-relevant and more-differentiated products and services. The only way to accomplish this is to focus on a narrower target.

Source: Bradley Johnson, Ad Age, "Where's the Money Moving? Out of Media" 6/11/07

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- U.S. ad spending -- at least the measured kind -- fell 0.3% in the January-to-March period, the first down quarter since the ad recovery began in 2002. But a drop in reported ad spending does not mean a drop in marketing spending. That's because what marketers need isn't just measured media; it's measurable results.

Source: Mark A. Chaves, Chief Marketer, "Marketing Accountability and ROI, Part I Back to the Future of Marketing ROI" 12/2/06

In the last few years, marketing accountability has evolved from being a directive of industry analysts and thought leaders to become a full-fledged strategic imperative for corporations. … The fact is, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and other senior marketing executives have helped propel marketing accountability out of the starting gate from a genuine desire for improved financial and strategic performance across all areas of business.

…Marketing organizations must be accountable to the financial goals of the firm. This responsibility emanates from the financial side of the executive suite in the form of marketing ROI, also known as return-on-marketing-investment (ROMI). Secondly, the marketing team must align with the strategic objectives of the firm where the chief executive is most focused.

Source: Anthony Young, Ad Age, "CMOs, Start Thinking Like Investment Managers" 10/15/07

...ROI should be recast as a profit or loss? And advertising and marketing channels should be viewed as alternative investment funds designed to maximize marketing profits? Sounds a bit heretical, perhaps -- as if Goldman Sachs had taken over WPP -- but it's really a way of suggesting to marketers that they adopt an investment-management approach to their marketing. Such a transformation will give them a foundation to demonstrate how marketers can drive shareholder value, as opposed to just being purveyors of brand building or driving short-term sales lifts.